Photos by Baher Amin © The Peninsula
As one of the top destinations for Qataris, Thailand is diversifying its tourism offerings by launching new tourism products to attract more tourists from Qatar and the Middle East region.
Last year, close to 30,000 Qataris visited Thailand, generally for medical tourism and it is estimated tourist arrivals from Qatar to Thailand had reached 50,000 including foreigners living and working in Qatar.
“Since Qataris visit Thailand mostly for medical tourism, Bangkok is currently the key destination, but Thailand can offer a variety of tourism products to the Qatari people — not only beach resorts but also culture, nature and local tourism,” Tanes Petsuwan, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Deputy Governor for International Marketing (Europe, Africa, Middle East and Americas) told local media.
Petsuwan was speaking at a recent road show organised by TAT in partnership with Qatar Airways as a prelude to the 2017 Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai. The road show highlighted new value-based offer for Qataris and residents focusing on “Unique Thai Local Experiences” offering innovative experiences and cultural activities to further discover their Amazing Story in Amazing Thailand.
Recently, TAT has initiated the LINK project in which ‘L’ represents Local Experiences; ‘I’ for Innovation; ‘N’ for Networking and ‘K’ for Keeping character. This is aimed to attract international visitors and enhance the distribution of tourism income to local communities by promoting the local tourism in various cities in Thailand; such as Samut Songkram where travellers can enjoy floating market, temples and boat ride into canals through coconut groves. “We are focusing on local tourism, the Thai community, that will be new strategy for Middle East tourists,” said Petsuwan, adding gastronomy as another product they wanted to promote in their Middle Eastern tourism source market.
“With regard to gastronomy tourism, Thailand is a Muslim-friendly destination offering Halal food which can be found easily anywhere in Thailand. Gastronomy tourism is a new campaign that we would like to launch at ATM in Dubai,” he explained.
Like other top tourist family-friendly destinations, family tourism also gets impetus in Thailand among its other tourism offerings such as wedding and honeymoon packages.
“TAT would like to promote more about the segmentation of the family. Also, just recently we put a new strategy for Qatar on the segmentation of wedding and honeymoon. Considering the strength of Thailand that lies on the variety of products on offer, I’m sure the same it will become a wedding and honeymoon destination for Qatari people like their destination for medical tourism it already is,” he added.
The close partnership that exists between TAT and Qatar Airways is set to play a crucial role in further strengthening the position of Thai tourism not only in Qatar and the Middle East but also in other parts of the world, especially the long-haul market, Petsuwan believes.
Qatar Airways is the only airline that offers direct flight from Doha to Bangkok, Phuket, and Krabi and soon it is going to open a new service to Chiang Mai — the biggest city in Northern Thailand and a well known cultural destination. At the ATM on Monday, TAT and Qatar Airways signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop joint promotions to mutually increase tourism and visibility for Thailand to travellers in more than 150 destinations the airline flies to.
Starting June 1, Qatar Airways will fly five times daily from Doha to Bangkok. The increased frequency, along with its twice daily flights to Phuket and the four flights a week to Krabi take the number of weekly Qatar Airways flights to Thailand to 53.
“We share the benefit working closely with Qatar Airways because once it flies to various destinations in Thailand, it’s not only tourists from the Middle East it carries but also tourists from the long-haul market, from Europe,” he said.
“I would say that it is a very clever strategy that Qatar offers itself as the springboard from the long haul market to Southeast Asia. That’s why we share the same strategy, that’s why Thailand is a very good partner with Qatar Airways,” he added.
Chalermsak Suranant, TAT Director for Dubai and Middle East market, said that last year Thailand welcomed 671,202 tourists from the Middle East, generating an income of more than $1.2bn, a 15 percent increase compared to the previous year and that it aims to increase Middle East Tourists Revenue to 11 percent or $1.4bn this year.
The top five tourism spending countries in the Middle East region are UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, according to Suranant.
“Last year nearly 30,000 Qataris visited Thailand — an increase of 12 percent compared to 2015, and even though Qatar is not in the top three rank in terms of tourism from the GCC, we see a potential, we see growth. I think 12 percent growth is not bad with the current circumstance. It has performed very well in this market,” explained Petsuwan.
